EastEnders delivered yet another blow to the Branning family this week, revealing that Abi Branning (Lorna Fitzgerald) would never regain consciousness, being declared brain dead and only being kept on life support because of her pregnancy.
Credit: BBC
The heartbreaking twist was just the latest in a series for Max Branning (Jake Wood), who contemplated suicide on Christmas Day, but eventually saw both of his daughters – Abi and Lauren (Jacqueline Jossa) – slip from the roof of the Queen Vic.
Lauren’s fate hasn’t yet been revealed, but it’s still possible that she’ll be able to make a recovery, despite Jossa admitting she would be leaving the soap in the near future. One popular theory suggests that she may raise Abi’s currently unborn child as her own and move away from the Square, which holds so many terrible memories for her and her family.
Jossa previously teased: “When you’re leaving, you’re like: ‘Well it better be Christmas Day, come on! I better be falling off The Vic.’
“You don’t want the taxi ending – you want it to be big, to be huge, for everyone to be speaking about it. Obviously it’s going to be one that everyone remembers. I’m absolutely buzzing about it.”
Little did we know at the time that Jossa was teasing the exact way her character would become a part of one of this year’s most dramatic storylines!
As for Max, who knows where he’s headed? He’s ran out of allies on the street and the future doesn’t look like it will offer up any great opportunities for him. It does however look like he’ll be sticking around, as Wood tweeted: “Thank you each and every one of you who posted such lovely comments. I truly appreciate them all and am so grateful for your support. Stay with the show, it’s going to be a GREAT 2018”.
EastEnders continues tonight (Friday, December 29) at 8pm on BBC One.
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